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Marks the third feature animation from award-winning Chinese filmmaker Liu Jian.

Paris-based Memento International has secured global sales rights to Chinese filmmaker Liu Jian’s animated feature Art College 1994, which has made a late entry to the Competition line-up at the upcoming Berlinale.

The feature will receive its world premiere at the 73rd edition of the festival, which runs February 16-26.

It marks Liu’s third feature after 2010’s Piercing I and Have A Nice Day, which also premiered in Competition at the Berlinale in 2017 and went on to win best animated feature at the prestigious Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan.

Singaporean director Anthony Chen’s English-language debut follows a West African refugee, Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), who washes up on a Greek island homeless, cashless, and friendless. She doesn’t speak until ten minutes into Drift, taking in her surroundings, plagued by a fear that’s nestled deep within her. Understandably, she’s scared of everyone and everything, living in a cave, eating whatever she can find, making money by washing tourists’ feet on the beach.

Chen sees Jacqueline as an other, lacking the empathy necessary to tell this weighty story, inexcusably using the camera to shoot her as someone who doesn’t belong. It feels less like a storytelling technique than a major formal misstep. Any empathy comes across as coded, the vagueness of the narrative only cementing this absence.

Coming from a script by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik, Drift rarely individualizes its main character, quietly watching her as she struggles to survive.

Drift, the latest feature from Singaporean director Anthony Chen, follows Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), who finds herself struggling to scrape by on a Greek island after fleeing Liberia during the war. The daughter of a wealthy government loyalist, this new rough and tumble lifestyle is far from the luxurious life she used to live. When she meets Callie (Alia Shawkat), an American tourist traveling solo, she is charmed and takes a risk by forming a connection with her. Chen’s longtime editor Hoping Chen discusses the process of working on this film, revealing many of his established cutting habits. See all responses […]

The post “I Usually Prefer To Embrace the Rushes as a Whole”: Editor Hoping Chen on Drift first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Drift, the latest feature from Singaporean director Anthony Chen, follows Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), who finds herself struggling to scrape by on a Greek island after fleeing Liberia during the war. The daughter of a wealthy government loyalist, this new rough and tumble lifestyle is far from the luxurious life she used to live. When she meets Callie (Alia Shawkat), an American tourist traveling solo, she is charmed and takes a risk by forming a connection with her. Chen’s longtime editor Hoping Chen discusses the process of working on this film, revealing many of his established cutting habits. See all responses […]

The post “I Usually Prefer To Embrace the Rushes as a Whole”: Editor Hoping Chen on Drift first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Alia Shawkat spoke to uInterview about her new film Drift, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah this week.

Cynthia Erivo plays Jacqueline, a war refugee who seeks to make a new life on a Greek island. From a wealthy Liberian family, Jacqueline now finds herself stealing food and squatting in caves to survive while still dealing with the trauma of her past. Jacqueline decides to take a chance and form a friendship with Callie (Shawkat), an American tour guide.

Shawkat discussed the film’s message on refugees. “I think the film does a great job of not preaching about politics but more focusing on a human story and about how we are learning to trust each other and maybe not assume someone’s story. And maybe be a little kinder to someone who is a stranger,” Shawkat said.

Watch Cynthia Erivo’s uINTERVIEW Now!

Shawkat revealed...

Cynthia Erivo talked to uInterview about her most memorable moment while shooting the film Drift, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Sunday.

Erivo plays Jacqueline, a war refugee who seeks to make a new life on a Greek island. A member of a wealthy Liberian family, Jacqueline now finds herself stealing food and squatting in caves to survive while still dealing with the trauma of her past after being forced to flee her homeland. Jacqueline decides to take a chance and form a friendship with Callie (Alia Shawkat), an American tour guide.

Erivo revealed an intimate moment she shared with co-star Shawkat on set.

“There’s a scene that we film in the abandoned hotel while we were shooting it there was a moment of quiet where we sat outside, me and Alia [Shawkat] with our backs to everyone, just looking out at the horizon and...

MTV Documentary Films has acquired worldwide rights to Sundance world-premiering love story The Eternal Memory, director Maite Alberdi’s follow-up to Oscar nominated doc The Mole Agent. The price is said to be approaching 3 million in a competitive situation with a number of bidders.

The film, which screened in the Sundance Film Festival World Documentary Competition section, will have its international premiere at the Berlinale next month in the Panorama Section and the company is planning a theatrical release and robust awards campaign later this year.

Related Story Sundance Film Festival 2023: Best Of The Red Carpet, Film Premieres & Parties Gallery Related Story Sundance Review: Cynthia Erivo & Alia Shawkat In Anthony Chen's 'Drift' Related Story Sundance Review: Sing J. Lee's 'The Accidental Getaway Driver'

The Eternal Memory was produced by Maite Alberdi, Juan De Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín and Rocío Jadue. Executive producers are Marcela Santibañez,...

Anyone who has traveled to seaside resort areas around the world will recognize them, the obvious foreigners who spend their days approaching tourists with assorted trinkets to sell and are most often ignored or shooed away by Westerners. Precious few films have put such figures centerstage, but Drift does that and quite a bit more as it examines a young woman whose currently forlorn position in the world masks the very different sort of life to which she was once accustomed.

Tragedy and bereavement are dealt with an exceptionally acute and insightful manner in Drift. Working from a 2013 novel by Alexander Maksik, the full title of which is A Marker to Measure Drift, the author and his co-writer Susanne Farrell tackled a challenging narrative that many filmgoers would readily avoid, a personal tragedy of staggering magnitude. But not only has Singapore director Anthony Chen set himself a tough task in this ambitious adaptation,...

Sundance film festival: Cynthia Erivo stars as a west African migrant who befriends Alia Shawkat’s American émigré in this too-quiet character drama

Save for its few flashback moments of horrific, haunting trauma, Drift, the mostly quiet story of a west African migrant reeling from the unimaginable on a Greek resort isle, is easy on the eyes. Director Anthony Chen’s film, from a screenplay by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik, gives harried aftermath the sheen of tranquil nobility, resilience hiding in plain sight – the crowd of barely clothed, languid white bodies dotting star Cynthia Erivo’s opening walk down the beach, the bleached yellow of the Mediterranean sun, the way Erivo’s Jacqueline slowly, carefully washes her one set of clothes. Even Jacqueline’s night ritual, arranging plastic bags of pebbles for a makeshift beach cave mattress, takes on the lulling rhythm of a reverie.

It’s a lot of compelling aesthetic,...

At first glance, Cynthia Erivo’s Sundance drama “Drift” appears to be the latest in a long line of call-to-action refugee stories, set in Europe and focused on those who’ve left Africa, only to encounter resistance once they reach unfamiliar shores. Turns out, while there are certainly overlaps with recent films like “Mediterranea” and “Fire at Sea” — which are deserving social-issue movies to be sure — “Drift” doesn’t have anything like the same agenda.

Rather than serving to indict European indifference, as refugee films so often do, Singaporean director Anthony Chen’s moving feature uses the fictional journey of Erivo’s character, Jacqueline, as an unlikely ode to healing and human connection. That’s an ambitious gamble, since Europe’s real-world immigration troubles are serious enough that inventing a story purely for metaphorical purposes — the way co-writer Alexander Maksik did in his original novel, “A Marker to Measure Drift” — might have seemed tacky.

Human Flowers of Flesh (2022).I’ve always known that the context of any screening affects our response to a film, but I think I came to understand this on a gut level only recently. It’s only when you travel to a different landscape that you can really comprehend—in your body as much as in your mind—how much your environment shapes your aesthetic experience. I was at the Locarno Film Festival in August, for instance, and I found myself drawn to movies that wouldn’t normally have moved me, the type of slow cinema that’s popular on the festival circuit but which sometimes leaves me cold. Maybe I was more open-minded about this kind of film because of my unusually relaxed surroundings. Maybe it was the psychic energy of the location itself—Locarno, nestled on the shore of Lake Maggiore, surrounded on all sides by steep, lush...

Early into Helena Wittmann’s 2017 feature debut, Drift, a character recounts a Papua New Guinean tale of the world’s creation. Back when the planet was all water, a giant crocodile kept paddling around preventing the sand to settle; only after a warrior slaughtered the beast did the land jut into being. A few minutes into Human Flowers of the Flesh a sailor shares another legend, this one from Ancient Greece. As he chopped Medusa’s head, Perseus dropped it on the shore; the seaweed absorbed the Gorgon’s petrifying powers, and that’s how coral was born. Wittmann has a knack for myths, and her cinema radiates a certain mythical grandeur, a pleasure as primeval and untimely as the stories her projects orbit around. Flowers, in that, feels both ancient and novel. It’s a film whose visual experiments invite one to see the world anew, even as the...

Exclusive: Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo (Harriet) will lead cast alongside Being The Ricardos and Arrested Development star Alia Shawkat in Anthony Chen’s (Ilo Ilo) English-language debut Drift.

The film reunites Call Me By Your Name producers Emilie Georges and Peter Spears and exec producer Naima Abed. Spears won the Best Picture Oscar last year for Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland.

Drift follows a young Liberian refugee named Jacqueline (Erivo) who has barely escaped her war-torn country to a Greek island. She offers massages to tourists in exchange for one or two euros to battle her hunger, while her daily struggle for survival keeps the memories that haunt her at bay. She meets an unmoored tour guide (Shawkat) and the two become close as they each find hope in the other. Ibrahima Ba, who has a supporting role in Cannes 2022 title Father & Soldier, and Honor Swinton-Byrne (The Souvenir: Parts 1 & 2), are also among cast.

“Call Me By Your Name” producers Emilie Georges and Naima Abed are launching Paradise City, a London- and Paris-based film, TV drama and branded content production and management company. The banner’s slate includes projects by Edward Berger (“Deutschland 83”), Lili Horvát (“White God”), Anthony Chen (“Ilo Ilo”) and South African author Lauren Beukes (“Slipping”).

Georges is the founder and CEO of sales banner Memento Intl., which is at Cannes this year with Tarik Saleh’s competition film “Boy from Heaven,” Dominik Moll’s “La nuit du 12” in Cannes Premieres, Charlotte Le Bon’s “Falcon Lake” in Directors’ Fortnight and Kristoffer Borgli’s “Sick of Myself” in Un Certain Regard. Abed, who is based in the U.K., produced “Call Me By Your Name” with Georges under their other production banner La Cinefacture and has been building Paradise City’s roster for over a year. So far, the outfit...

Human Flowers of Flesh

In what sounds like a cerebral high stakes at sea, Helena Wittmann‘s promising sophomore feature concluded filming in October of 2020 but wasn’t rushed into a prime 2021 film festival slot. Wittmann’s 2017 debut Drift premiered in Critic’s Week at the Venice Film Festival and Human Flowers of Flesh was featured in Locarno’s The Films After Tomorrow program (2020) for productions halted by the pandemic. Starring Angeliki Papoulia, Denis Lavant, Vladimir Vulevic, Mauro Soares and Gustavo Jahn this will likely set sail soon.

Gist: Ida (Papoulia) lives on a sailing yacht with a crew of five men.…...

“The Miracle Club,” an Ireland-u.K. co-production starring Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney, is one of a further nine independent co-productions being supported by the U.K. Global Screen Fund with a total of £1.32 million ($1.74 million).

The film is produced by Chris Curling and Zephyr Films with Irish producer ShinAwil Limited and funding from Screen Ireland and is being executive produced by Embankment Films.

Previously announced grant recipients include “My Happy Ending,” a U.K.-Israel official co-production, starring Miriam Margolyes and Andie MacDowell, which has recently wrapped production in Wales, and “The Coop Troop,” a U.K.-China-France animated co-production, which is now in the principal animation stage in Northern Ireland.

The U.K. Global Screen Fund is worth £7 million, which is financed by the U.K’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms) and administered by the British Film Institute. It was set up...

The UK’s Global Screen Fund, which was created to fill the void left by the absence of funding from Creative Europe’s Media program post-Brexit, has awarded a further £1.32M ($1.75M) in grants spread across nine film and TV projects.

The £7M ($9.25M) fund, which is administered by the British Film Institute on behalf of the government department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Dcms), is being overseen by former All3Media and Endemol Shine exec Denitsa Yordanova.

The nine projects, all of which are international co-productions, are as follows: UK-Ireland co-pro The Miracle Club; UK-Germany co-pro The Tutor; UK-Ireland TV animation Ghastly Ghoul; UK-France co-pro Drift; UK-Chile-Argentina-France-Denmark co-pro The Settlers; UK-Germany-Denmark co-pro Merkel; UK-Canada Elephant Mother; UK-South Africa co-pro Stolen; UK-Belgium-Ireland co-pro Bring Them Down.

Full details of each title are at the bottom of this article.

The grants follow previously backed projects My Happy Ending (UK-Israel) and The...

Veronica Cartwright has been cast in the upcoming biopic “How to Talk with Spirits,” Variety has learned.

“The Birds” and “Alien” star will play real-life psychic June Ahern in the supernatural thriller based on Ahern’s life and book of the same title.

The indie film, directed and produced by “Shopping for Fangs” and “Drift” filmmaker Quentin Lee, sees the retired psychic working with law enforcement to find missing people in the Bay Area. Using her special talents, Ahern helps the San Francisco police solve the murder of her client’s daughter, whose ghost relentlessly haunts her loved ones.

“I’m very excited to be playing June Ahern,” said Cartwright. “Having spoken to June, who is alive and well, she told me it’s not just that she saw the incident, but she felt the emotion of the the person that was murdered and embodied those emotions. I’m looking forward to the challenge.

CBS Television Studios, Rideback and Thinking Hat are reteaming on a second year of the Rideback/Thinking Hat Campfire writers room, which in its inaugural year developed and sold two projects to CBS. The program, designed to attract experienced feature film writers and other creative voices to broadcast TV development for the first time, has set Jeff Buhler (Pet Sematary), Gbenga Akinnagbe (The Wire) and writer Katrina O’Gilvie (Swagger) for this year’s roster.

The trio work with showrunner/executive producers Anna Fricke (Walker), Rina Mimoun (Under the Bridge) and Corinne Brinkerhoff (American Gothic), who all have overall deals at CBS TV Studios. They will provide support from development through series.

The program, run by Thinking Hat founder and writer-producer Craig Turk, sold two projects to CBS Television Network in its first year in 2019-2020: Drift from Chris Salmanpour and The Eshmun Protocol from Jason Keller.

CBS Television Studios and production companies Rideback and Thinking Hat are again partnering on the Rideback/Thinking Hat Campfire writer’s room.

Three new creators have been selected for the second year of the room. They are writer Jeff Buhler, multi-hyphenate Gbenga Akinnagbe, and writer Katrina O’Gilvie. Working alongside them will be three experienced showrunner/executive producers: Anna Fricke, Rina Mimoun, and Corinne Brinkerhoff. Fricke, Mimoun and Brinkerhoff are under overall deals at the Studio.

“Our vision for Campfire is to support exciting creative voices using the power of collaboration, in particular by introducing the writers room dynamic from day one,” said Rideback CEO Dan Lin. “We’re excited to have Jeff, Gbenga and Katrina as our creators this year and support their remarkable new ideas.”

The program is designed to attract experienced feature film writers and other creative voices to broadcast television development for the first time. In its inaugural 2019-2020 year,...

One of the most entrancing films I’ve seen in the last few years has been Helena Wittmann’s debut feature Drift, screened at New Directors/New Films back in 2018, and beautifully reviewed by our own Leonardo Goi here. The German director is now prepping her follow-up feature and the cast has been announced, along with new details.

Variety reports that Denis Lavant and Angeliki Papoulia will lead the Mediterranean-set feature Human Flowers of Flesh. The 16mm-shot film, featured in Locarno’s The Films After Tomorrow spotlight, follows our heroine Ida, who navigates with an all-male crew along the route of the French Foreign Legion from Marseille to Sidi-Bel-Abbes via Calvi on a contemporary odyssey that is at once political and sensuous. Wittman, who serves as her own cinematographer, has said Claire Denis’ Beau Travail is an inspiration, as well as Éric Rohmer’s The Green Ray.

“It is an...

Sounding a note of hope for the 20 titles selected for Locarno Festival’s highest-profile competition, The Films After Tomorrow, Helena Wittmann’s entry, the sensuous sea odyssey “Human Flowers of Flesh,” is scheduled to go into production on Aug. 12, with “Dogtooth” actor Angeliki Papoulia and “Holy Motors’” Denis Lavant attached to star.

The news gains particular force coming on the eve of a reimagined Locarno Festival in Switzerland, Europe’s biggest mid-summer movie event, whose Films After Tomorrow strand aims to prize and promote movies — 10 Swiss, 10 international — whose production was foreclosed or halted by the Covid-19 pandemic, as was the case with Wittmann’s second feature.

The producers of “Human Flowers of Flesh,” Germany’s Fünfurfilm and France’s Tita Productions, had originally planned to location scout in Algeria’s Sidi-Bel-Abbes in March 2020 and then shoot a part of the movie in May, but all their plans were scuppered by the pandemic.

Exclusive: Lesley-Ann Brandt, who plays Maze on Netflix’s drama series Lucifer, has signed with ICM Partners. The news comes as Lucifer preps its return for a fifth season on August 21.

The Cape Town, South Africa-born Brandt began her career in New Zealand after her family immigrated there when she was in her teens. Her breakout role there came in playing Naevia in Starz’s Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.

Brandt’s other TV credits include Gotham, Single Ladies, The Librarians, Legend of the Seeker and Memphis Beat. She also co-starred starred in the 2013 surf pic Drift.

She remains repped by Luber Roklin and attorney Matt Rosen at Goodman, Genow.

Locarno Film Festival will not be going ahead as usual this year, but the festival is still aiming to support filmmakers from around the world whose projects were halted due to the pandemic. They’ve unveiled The Films After Tomorrow, an initiative featuring twenty full-length works in progress from some of the top filmmakers working today, including Lucrecia Martel, Lisandro Alonso, Lav Diaz, Wang Bing, and Miguel Gomes.

Selected from 545 submissions, the resulting 20 films will screen for juries, who will then award prizes to help with the completion of the respective winners. While these films understandably won’t be screening publicly yet, it’s great to get additional details on some of our most-anticipated upcoming films, as one can see in the synopses below. Hopefully by next year we’ll see many of these pop up on the festival circuit.

“Our role as a Festival is to build a bridge between films,...

New works by prominent auteurs Lucrecia Martel, Lav Diaz, Lisandro Alonso and Wang Bing grace the lineup of works-in-progress unveiled by the Locarno Film Festival.

The canceled Swiss fest dedicated to indie cinema on Thursday announced 20 titles that made the cut for its innovative The Films After Tomorrow initiative that will provide support to filmmakers forced to stop working due to the global pandemic. Of these, 10 are international and 10 from Switzerland. Prizes will be awarded by juries made up by still unspecified filmmakers on Aug. 15.

“Our role is to act as a link between films, the industry and audiences, and so (when Locarno was canceled due to coronavirus concerns) we looked at alternative ways of carrying out that mission, assessing where our intervention could be most useful at this time,” said Locarno artistic director Lili Hinstin at a Zoom presentation during the Cannes Virtual Market. A total of 545 projects from 101 countries were submitted,...

Vicki Madden and Vincent Sheehan en route to the launch of ‘The Kettering Incident’.

Screen Tasmania is supporting the development of 13 projects – a mix of feature films, comedy and drama series and factual – involving both experienced and emerging talent.

The $242,500 in additional project development funding is part of the Tasmanian Government’s cultural and creative industries stimulus package.

While the individual sums are modest, averaging $20,000, the funding round sheds light on some intriguing projects from such creatives as Vicki Madden, Fiona McConaghy, Elli Eliades, Jungle Entertainment, Good Thing Productions, Blur Films, Roar Films and Fredbird Entertainment.

Renewing their collaboration after Stan’s The Gloaming, Madden’s Sweet Potato Films and John Molloy’s 2 Jons are preparing Wireless Hill. The 8 x 1 hour drama follows 10 bright young scientists from around the world who are given the opportunity of a lifetime to study on the unique Macquarie Island.

They discover they are unwitting...

Roy Dana (R.D.) Call, an actor who appeared in such films as “Last Man Standing,” “Born on the Fourth of July” and several other films alongside Sean Penn, died on Feb. 27 of back surgery complications, his family announced. He was 70.

The Utah native was born Feb. 16, 1950 and came to Los Angeles in 1975 to pursue his career in acting, attending Lee Strasberg Acting School and Lonny Chapman’s L.A. Repertory Theater Group. His first major television performance was in the drama “Barnaby Jones,” episodes of which were directed by Leo Penn, Sean Penn’s father. He went on to appear on “The X-Files,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “V” and “Trapper John M.D,” and had a recurring role in Stephen King’s “Golden Years.”

Call acted alongside Penn in seven films that began with “At Close Range” in 1986, followed by “Colors,” “State of Grace,” “The Weight of Water,...

British electronic duo Underworld will return to North America for their first set of shows here in five years this May.

The run kicks off May 15th at the Warfield in San Francisco, and includes stops in Los Angeles, New York and Detroit before wrapping May 27th at the Rebel in Toronto.

Per a statement, Underworld will “perform their immersive and gloriously hallucinatory two-hour plus live sets” that will boast a mix of classic cuts and newer material from their unique Drift: Series 1 project. Ticket information is available on Underworld’s website.

It's been a great few days for Fast and Furious fans. Universal Pictures has just released a new F9 trailer in honor of today's big game. While many fans were skeptical that the studio would release more footage after just releasing the first trailer just a few days ago, the studio is bringing out the big guns, while also announcing that tickets for the highly anticipated ninth installment are now on sale. Fans can go purchase pre-sale tickets to make sure they get the prime seats.

Earlier this week, we got the first F9 trailer. Summer 2020 is the time for Fast and Furious 9, the ninth chapter in the saga that has endured for almost two decades and has earned more than $5 billion around the world. Vin Diesel's Dom Toretto is leading a quiet life off the grid with Letty and his son, little Brian, but they know...

Drift a a new American drama written by William Francis Hoffman Cal in Camo, directed by Academy Award winner Bobby Moresco Crash, Million Dollar Baby and starring Emmy winner Joe Pantoliano The Sopranos will have its world premiere Off-Broadway production from February 27 through May 24 at New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street in Manhattan. For tickets and information, please visit www.Telecharge.com.

Exclusive: CBS is developing The Eshmun Protocol, a conspiracy thriller drama from Ford v. Ferrari co-writer Jason Keller, Rina Mimoun (Mistresses), Craig Turk (FBI), Dan Lin’s Rideback and CBS TV Studios where Rideback has a first-look deal.

Written by Keller, The Eshmun Protocol centers on a combat engineer who returns home to San Francisco for the funeral of his estranged father and begins to unravel the mystery of his father’s death and the dark secrets of the bio-tech company he inherits.

Keller executive produces alongside Mimoun, Turk via his Thinking Hat banner and Lin and Lindsey Liberatore via Rideback.

This is the second broadcast sale this season that’s a collaboration between Rideback and Thinking Hat, joining drama Drift, from writer Chris Salmanpour, also at CBS.

Keller co-wrote with Jez and John-Henry Butterworth the upcoming Fox feature Ford V. Ferrari, directed by James Mangold and starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale.

The festival is held from September 26 to October 5.

The line-ups for six juries at this year’s Filmfest Hamburg (Sept 26 to Oct 5) have been revealed.

The all-German jury that will award the Hamburg producer prize for German cinema productions includes actress Susanne Wolff (Styx), director Ilker Çatak and editor Sebastian Thümler, who worked on Özgür Yildirim’s Only God Can Judge Me. The award comes with a €25,000 cash prize.

Judging the German producer in an international co-production award are Serbian cinematographer Ivan Markovic, Swiss producer Ivan Madeo and German-Swiss dramaturg and curator András Siebold.

The all-German jury for the Hamburg...

Pitch Perfect star Rebel Wilson is to star in an Australian period drama funded by Sonar Entertainment.

Wilson is to front Les Norton, a ten-part series based on Robert G. Barrett’s novels, for Australian public broadcaster ABC. The series is produced by Romper Stomper producer Roadshow Rough Diamond in association with Screen Australia with Taboo distributor Sonar Entertainment selling globally.

Set in 1985, the series will follow the exploits of Les Norton, a man from outback Queensland. On the run from a troubled past, he blows into Sydney where he lands a job as a bouncer at a notorious illegal casino in Kings Cross. He soon finds himself seduced by the city’s illicit charms and dragged into a web of underground criminality.

Rising star Alexander Bertrand will play the eponymous lead, while Romper Stomper’s David Wenham will star alongside Wilson in the drama, which is directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse,...

Rebel Wilson and David Wenham will star in Australian drama series “Les Norton.” Adapted from the novels of Robert G. Barrett, the show is presented by The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Screen Australia.

Set in 1985, the series will follow the exploits of a country bloke from outback Queensland, played by rising star Alexander Bertrand. On the run from a troubled past, he blows into Sydney where he lands a job as a bouncer at an illegal casino. A classic fish out of water who is desperate to get home, he soon finds himself seduced by the city’s illicit charms and dragged into a web of underground criminality.

The series will be directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, Fadia Abboud (“Australian Gangster”), David Caesar and Morgan O’Neill. It was created for television by Morgan O’Neill, working alongside writers Christopher Lee Samantha Winston Shanti Gudgeon Malcolm Knox and Jessica Tuckwell.

It...

Rebel Wilson..

The ABC has commissioned 10-part Roadshow Rough Diamond drama Les Norton, based on the best-selling novels by Robert G. Barrett.

Set in 1985, the series will follow the exploits of Les Norton, a country bloke from outback Queensland. On the run from a troubled past, he blows into Sydney where he lands a job as a bouncer at a notorious illegal casino in Kings Cross. A classic fish out of water who’s desperate to get home, he soon finds himself seduced by the city’s illicit charms and dragged into a web of underground criminality.

Rebel Wilson and David Wenham will headline the cast together with up-and-coming actor Alexander Bertrand, who will play Norton.

Daniel and John Edwards will produce the series created by by Morgan O’Neill, who will work alongside writers Christopher Lee (Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo), Samantha Winston (Wentworth), Shanti Gudgeon (Wolf Creek...

Two unnamed women (Theresa George and Josefina Gill) spend a quiet weekend together around the North Sea, before parting as one (George) sails solo across the Atlantic and the other (Gill) returns home. Quiet and meditative to an extreme, Helena Wittmann’s debut feature “Drift,” which premiered at Venice and part of the New Directors/New Films festival, eschews any type of traditional narrative for an equally absorbing and prolonged film that confronts both the seduction and disenchantment of solitude.

The cast of Legendary's Detective Pikachu keeps growing and growing, with Oscar nominated actor Ken Watanabe the latest to come aboard. The project is based on the hit video game franchise, but Ken Watanabe is playing a brand new character created specifically for this movie. Ken Watanabe will play a character known as Detective Yoshida, although no further details were given regarding this character. It remains to be seen how many more characters still need to be cast in this upcoming movie.

The story centers on Justice Smith's character Tim Goodman, who learns that his father has been kidnapped. This leads the youngster to team up with the peculiar Detective Pikachu, who will be played by Ryan Reynolds, an intelligent Pikachu who can actually communicate with humans and claims to be a great detective. They will be joined by Kathryn Newton's character, who is said to be...

When The Fast and the Furious was released in June 2001, the signs did not portend its eventual future as one of cinema’s most durable and lucrative franchises. The original film, based on a magazine article about street racing, didn’t feature any A-list stars and wasn’t expected to make a dent in a summer featuring “surefire” box-office hits like Pearl Harbor, Tomb Raider and Planet of the Apes.

More: 29 Things You Probably Didn't Know About the 'The Fast and the Furious' Films

But then the Nos kicked in and audiences ate up the adventures of Dom (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker) and the rest of their motley crew as they drove fast, executed capers, bested rivals and espoused family values in a series of increasingly over-the-top movies that helped reshape the action genre and showed Hollywood that a diverse cast could equal global box-office success.

With The Fate of the Furious in theaters...

Principal photography has begun in Perth on John V. Soto.s (The Reckoning, Needle) latest sci-fi drama Love You Twice.

Jacqueline McKenzie (The Water Diviner, Deep Blue Sea, The 4400) stars as the lead, alongside Myles Pollard (Drift, The Turning), Hayley McElhinney (The Babadook), Shannon Berry (Hunters) and Ryan Panizza. Ben Mortley (Lantana) is a new addition to the cast and will play the role of .Regg., a scientist.

Soto is directing and co-wrote Love You Twice with author Michael White (Equinox, The Medici Secret). It follows a particle physicist (McKenzie) grieving over the loss of her husband who uses a revolutionary invention to bring him back, with dire consequences for their family.

Love You Twice is a Filmscope Entertainment and Convergence Productions film. Soto is producing with Deidre Kitcher, while executive producers are Malcolm and Kate Rudd, Coppelia Tingley, Pauline Chan and Gia Zhang RenJie.

The film has a...

Robert Keeling Nov 11, 2016

A salute to some of the finest uplifting moments in film, and to cinema's ability to lift your day.

A few weeks ago we published a list of traumatic moments that have appeared in family films. Of course we all enjoyed that waltz through painful childhood nightmare fuel, but the question was raised, why not do a list of slightly more positive and upbeat movie scenes instead? Thus, this: 25 of the most triumphant movie moments of all time.

Everyone has that go-to feel-good movie which they stick on when life is getting them down. Had a bad week at work? Stick Four Weddings on. Football team lose 5-0 and get soaked through on your way home? Time for Baseketball. Leave a tenner in the pocket of your jeans that just went in the wash and thus suddenly realise that life is a never-ending cycle of pain and...

Xavier Samuel in Spin Out.

He might not be a household name just yet, but Xavier Samuel has seemingly endless projects in the pipeline. If talks to the actor about the purple patch that's seen him star in every other Aussie film this year.

Scan the title credits of this year.s Aussie films and you.ll notice one name popping up again and again: Xavier Samuel.

From the titular character in Miff opener The Death and Life of Otto Bloom, to the lead in Marc Gracie and Tim Ferguson.s B&S ball rom-com Spin Out and in the upcoming sequel to 2011.s Few Best Men, A Few Less Men — Samuel.s having a busy year.

He.s also the lead in David Pulbrook.s thriller Bad Blood — currently in post — and will feature alongside Hugo Weaving in the ABC.s anticipated six-part series Seven Types of Ambiguity.

Despite...

Xavier Samuel in Spin Out.

He might not be a household name just yet, but Xavier Samuel has seemingly endless projects in the pipeline. If talks to the actor about the purple patch that's seen him star in every other Aussie film this year.

Scan the title credits of this year.s Aussie films and you.ll notice one name popping up again and again: Xavier Samuel.

From the titular character in Miff opener The Death and Life of Otto Bloom, to the lead in Marc Gracie and Tim Ferguson.s B&S ball rom-com Spin Out and in the upcoming sequel to 2011.s Few Best Men, A Few Less Men — Samuel.s having a busy year.

He.s also the lead in David Pulbrook.s thriller Bad Blood — currently in post — and will feature alongside Hugo Weaving in the ABC.s anticipated six-part series Seven Types of Ambiguity.

Despite...

The Legend of Gavin Tanner.

We Were Here and Flushed have scooped the nominations for the West Australian Screen Awards.

The West Australian Screen Awards celebraes excellence and achievements in feature film, short film, web series, music videos, television production, documentary, games and interactive productions.

Short drama We Were Here, directed by David Vincent Smith and produced by Joshua Gilbert and Simon Camp, earned six nominations, the most for the awards.

Short comedy Flushed, directed and produced by Richard Eames, also received six nominations.

ABC comedy TV series The Legend of Gavin Tanner, written and directed by Matt Lovkis and Henry Inglis and produced by Lauren Elliott received five nominations, as did short drama Sol Bunker, produced by Glen Stasiuk and directed by Nathan Mewett.

Film and Television Institute Wa (Fti) chief executive, Paul Bodlovich, said the WASAs were one of the most important events on the cultural calendar in Western Australia.

Attention merchants: You should have started stocking barbecue gear and beach balls in March because summer now officially starts before Easter.

That's because "Furious 7" opened well beyond the wildest predictions, earning an estimated $143.6 million this weekend, not just setting a new April record but becoming the biggest debut in the history of Universal Pictures and the ninth-biggest opening weekend of all-time. In other words, the film has proved you can earn summer-blockbuster-sized numbers before March Madness is even finished.

Sure, people expected "Furious 7" to do well -- it's a popular franchise, and it had no real competition this weekend. But predictions topped out around $110 to $120 million. But $144 million? What series on its seventh installment that doesn't involve teenage British wizards can command that kind of premiere?

Now, of course, Hollywood will be scrambling to replicate the film's surprising success, but the studios won't really be able to, since...

"Furious 7" has finally hit theaters across the nation and we think some moviegoers are in for a surprise. After the first hour or so, some viewers will stop and think to themselves, "Wait, why is this flick getting so much hype, again?" Yes, this is when we arrive at the dirty secret of the latest installment in the "Fast and Furious" franchise; it's actually the worst movie of the post-"Tokyo Drift"/Vin Diesel-less era. Before you immediately jump to the comments section to protest, please note this isn't click bait masking as contrarian opinion just to get fans all riled up. Sadly, it's the truth, but with one big caveat, the last 10 minutes or so of the picture will simply knock you out. Let's explore why, shall we? [Note: There are some spoilers from "Furious 7" ahead. If you don't want to know plot points for the main storyline stop here. The ending, however,...

Touch and Anzac Girls have won key prizes at the 2014 Australian Cinematographers Society awards for South Australia and Western Australia.

Aaron Gully took the best cinema feature award for Touch, a mystery starring Leeanna Walsman, Matt Day and newcomer Onor Nottle, produced by Triptych Pictures. Julie Byrne and directed by Christopher Houghton.

The best telefeature, series, TV drama or comedy trophy went to Geoffrey Hall Acs for episode four of Screentime.s Anzac Girls. Hall also collected the Milton Ingerson award for best entry overall.

Jim Frater Acs took the dual prize for best dramatised documentary for The War That Changed Us episode 1 and for Desert War- Alamein, both produced by Electric Pictures. Andrew Ogilvie. Here is the full list of winners: Student Cinematography Gold: Jordan Agutter ~ The Crane Wife ~ Sa Silver: Caroline Fisher ~ Source to Sea ~ Sa Bronze: Molly O.Connor ~ Damsels ~ Sa Experimental & Specialised Gold: Malcolm Ludgate...

Producer Annie Kinnane expresses a common complaint in the industry: Often by the time she and her friends hear about a new Australian film it.s been yanked off screens before they had a chance to see it.

Instead of just griping, she.s doing her bit to increase awareness by launching a Facebook page this week, entitled Australian Films You Will Want to See.

She.s encouraging her Fb friends and the wider industry to post an item as soon as they.ve seen a film they can recommend.

That initiative is in a similar vein to When Did You Last Pay to See an Australian Film at the Cinema?, a Fb page created earlier this month by My Mistress producer Leanne Tonkes.

Tonkes is asking her industry peers to nominate the last Aussie film they paid to see, as opposed to freebie previews, Aacta, funding body or post house screenings,...

Producer Annie Kinnane expresses a common complaint in the industry: Often by the time she and her friends hear about a new Australian film it.s been yanked off screens before they had a chance to see it.

Instead of just griping, she.s doing her bit to increase awareness by launching a Facebook page this week, entitled Australian Films You Will Want to See.

She.s encouraging her Fb friends and the wider industry to post an item as soon as they.ve seen a film they can recommend.

That initiative is not unlike When Did You Last Pay to See an Australian Film at the Cinema?, a Fb page created earlier this month by My Mistress producer Leanne Tonkes.

Tonkes is asking her industry peers to nominate the last Aussie film they paid to see, as opposed to freebie previews, Aacta, funding body or post house screenings, and...

Trying to outdo Nicolas Cage in the number of mediocre movies he can appear in, John Cusack is in yet another movie we didn't know existed (or possibly forgot about). It's called "The Factory," and apparently it's been on DVD since February. Huh. In any case, the U.K. trailer is here, and the folks who cut it really want to make sure a voiceover holds your hand,  explaining everything every step of the way. Co-starring Jennifer Carpenter ("Dexter"), Mae Whitman ("Arrested Development") and Katherine Waterston (one of our 2014 Actresses On The Rise), the generic story follows a cop hunting a serial killer who gets more than he bargained for when his own daughter goes missing. Morgan O'Neill (Sam Worthington surf movie "Drift") co-wrote and directed this wintery procedural, which doesn't seem to shake up the genre too much. But hey, if this kind of mediocrity helps Cusack keep his lights on,...

Vin Diesel is currently hitting the publicity trail for Guardians of the Galaxy, the movie where he finally plays a talking space tree—but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten about his roots, because the only thing that really matters in this life is family because without a family a man doesn’t have a code, vroom vroom! Thus, during an interview with France’s Skyrock FM, Diesel revealed a bit of casting news for Fast & Furious 7, which is unquestionably the most important sevenquel coming out in 2015.

Diesel was asked which song he would prefer to dance to: Jason Derulo’s “Wiggle,...